"You know the Bruce collection ?--not for publication, of course." "I should suppose not," said Ridley significantly.

"For a Divine he was--remarkably free." "The Pump in Neville's Row, for example ?" enquired Mr.Pepper.
"Precisely," said Ambrose.
Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex, highly trained in promoting men's talk without listening to it, could think--about the education of children, about the use of fog sirens in an opera--without betraying herself.

Only it struck Helen that Rachel was perhaps too still for a hostess, and that she might have done something with her hands.
"Perhaps-- ?" she said at length, upon which they rose and left, vaguely to the surprise of the gentlemen, who had either thought them attentive or had forgotten their presence.
"Ah, one could tell strange stories of the old days," they heard Ridley say, as he sank into his chair again.

Glancing back, at the doorway, they saw Mr.Pepper as though he had suddenly loosened his clothes, and had become a vivacious and malicious old ape.
Winding veils round their heads, the women walked on deck.

They were now moving steadily down the river, passing the dark shapes of ships at anchor, and London was a swarm of lights with a pale yellow canopy drooping above it.